Lots to like in health care law
By Glenn Rose
Republicans, hoping to regain the Senate and presidency this fall, are vilifying the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act as something bad for America. Reps.Morgan Griffith, Robert Hurt, Bob Goodlatte and Eric Cantor, Gov. Bob McDonnell, Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, Senate hopeful George Allen and presidential hopeful Mitt Romney want voters to elect Republicans so the act can be repealed.
Central to their objections is the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate. It calls for a penalty for those who choose not to purchase their own health coverage. Opponents see this as government requiring people to buy a product. The fact is, we’re already required to buy several products, Medicare Part A (hospital coverage) being one.
Rose is a licensed health insurance professional in Rockbridge County.
July 21, 2012 - 6:59 AM
When the “payment” for Medicare is taken from your monthly check, IT IS A TAX! I can legally choose not to participate in Medicare; at that point, I am not being forced to “buy” anything. Obamacare offers no such option.
How can you continue to use the word “penalty” when Justice Roberts declared it to be a tax…so as to make it constitutional. We are guaranteed the right to life, liberty and the PURSUIT of happiness. If only the healthy are allowed to pursue happiness we are in deep trouble. Tell me, when did paying your on way become illegal or unacceptable. Why did we not see the dead and dying lying in the streets and doorways before this law was passed? When is a child an adult? Why not just declare everyone who has a living parent to be a minor. I have a solution to the whole problem: Everybody dies, sooner or later. Simply require everyone to buy a life insurance policy with, say, a death value of 5 million dollars, effective immediately. As thousands of daily beneficiaries become millionaires, they can afford to pay for their own health care. Problem solved…just pass it as a death “penalty”.
I wanted single-payer universal health care but all I got was that private for-profit insurance healthcare.
#1, actually bear, the “right to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness” is stated in the Declaration of Independence, and, while a emotionally moving and historically important document, it does not stand as a legal document within the context of American jurisprudence. So those specific rights as you elude to them are not guaranteed.
You asked “Why did we not see the dead and dying lying in the streets and doorways before this law was passed?” Have you never been to a major American city? I saw them everyday. I still see them, even though I now live in southwestern Virginia; they (the dying) are in the cars next to me at stoplights, in line in front of me at the supermarket, and sitting next to me at the doctor’s office.
And, apparently, a child can be an adult for the purposes of prison sentencing and and the application of the death penalty.
I agree there is a lot to like in the ACA and I also agree with the mandate that holds people responsible within the structure of how health care is run.
“The Affordable Care Act’s requirement that certain individuals pay a financial penalty for not obtaining health insurance may reasonably be characterized as a tax,” wrote Roberts…”
It is as easily avoidable as paying your taxes on time avoids the penalty for being late. If you pay for car insurance, you do not have to pay the uninsured motorist fee. Calling this a new tax or pretending it will hit anyone who does the right thing is silly IMO.
I agree it is sad the government has to force us to do the right thing but the health care in this nation is drowning in red ink and something has to give. Why not have that something be the people who use the system but do not pay into it?
I was for single-payer and I still am, as were the majority of liberals, so the TP/GOP made this a reality, not just the Dems.
Funny, it’s my understanding that the Obamacare Tax law does not provide for any enforcement for failure to purchase health insurance.
The IRS cannot garnish wages, seize accounts, or collect interest on the unpaid “penalty”. I suppose all the IRS can do is just send nasty letters!
I guess when the Dems wrote the law, they knew that those effected the most would be the “poor” and they did not want to offend their main constituency! How thoughtful!
Wow, E William. That sure is some stirring rhetoric. It would be even better if it were accurate. The death penalty is not applicable to juveniles and hasn’t been for about seven years. (see Roper v. Simmons)
Thanks for the compliment, Chuck.